


compass

by serj



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pining, Trans Character, mild drinking, that's the only warning really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serj/pseuds/serj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They no longer saw love in pairs of two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	compass

_i._

_if a tree falls in the forest and on one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?_

In the laundry room of Tokyo University, both looking ill from the grotesque light of the buzzing fluorescent bulbs, two second-year students pulled their clothes out of separate dryers. 

Akaashi was bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, and Tsukishima nursed a styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand as he plucked each individual article from inside the machine, their fibers still seeping with heat, some clinging to each other. He set his drink down on the floor and squatted in front of his basket to pry a sock from his volleyball jersey, eyebrows furrowing as he did so. At this, Akaashi smiled. 

A passerby might presume they were mocking him, as they folded their clothes with careful, concise movements, even when confronted with their roommate’s dreadful pair of boxers with wide-eyed owls lining the hem. But Akaashi wasn’t interested, particularly, in Tsukishima’s folding skills. They were much more amused at the expression he wore; face contorted into a look of disgust at what could only be Kuroo Tetsurou’s tank top, decorated with an obese cartoon cat from an increasingly popular mobile game. 

The fact couldn’t be ignored that their selective roommates had been sleeping together for the past three months, and the two were caught in the crossfire of late-night house calls and badly orchestrated movie dates that seemed to occur at the most inconvenient times. Akaashi had always found Tsukishima endearing, and now that high school was over and some of their classes overlapped (Akaashi was a year behind, thanks to the gap year they had taken in order to write a novel), they couldn’t help but find intrigue in the fair-haired boy. 

“ _Shit!_ ” A puddle of lukewarm coffee now covered the floor in front of Tsukishima- he had knocked it over with his knee. 

Akaashi rushed to his aid, producing a fresh towel from their laundry basket and sopping up the mess with it. 

“Thanks,” Tsukishima murmured, their hands overlapping as they both pressed the towel into the linoleum floor, fingers now coffee-stained. Akaashi said “you’re welcome” in a hushed tone, and the thought occurred to them then, watching as Tsukishima pursed his lips and muttered strings of curses under his breath, that they might want to kiss him. Quickly picking up the soaked towel and tossing it back into the washer, they waited for Tsukishima to further his clipped thank-you into something of a conversation, but nothing happened. 

It was as if the incident had never taken place. Akaashi returned to folding their laundry, and Tsukishima threw away his empty cup and rifled through his heap of clothes for clean socks. The air of the room had changed, though. It was thicker, heavier, a molasses-like substance that labored Akaashi’s breathing. They wondered if Tsukishima had noticed the change. They wondered if Tsukishima had noticed them at all. 

 

_ii._

_but let’s not speak of what might have been._

“You know,” Kuroo began, breaking the stillness of the night. It was the evening before the start of term, and the heat of late summer swelled against their window like flies atop a corpse. A 12-pack sat empty on the coffee table, and their legs intertwined across the couch. 

“I know what?” Tsukishima was feeling the warm buzz of a drunken high, and his words were slurred, voice slightly airy. 

“Well, you don’t know. But-” he knocked knees with Tsukishima, who hummed in irritation but reciprocated nonetheless. “I used to have a thing for you, back in high school.”

“Oh, really?” Tsukishima asked dryly. 

Kuroo scoffed. “Don’t sound so sarcastic. I know you thought I was jus’ teasing you half the time.” 

That was true. Tsukishima grunted. “Are you going anywhere with this? I’d like to get at least a few hours of sleep before classes tomorrow. I’ll have enough to recover from with my hangover alone.”

“What I’m trying to say is-” he pursed his lips, inhaling, “Do you think we could have had a chance together?”

“...I think we still do.”

“But Bokuto-”

“Right. Bokuto.” Tsukishima’s stomach was twisting into knots. He was happy. Kuroo was telling him he liked him, or at least used to. But they were plastered on the last night of vacation, and had just spent the past three hours turning a _Doraemon_ marathon into a drinking game. _Not like this. Not like this._

“Listen, Tsukki-”

“It's fine. I’m going to bed.” He untangled himself from Kuroo. Summer was over. And he hadn’t made anything out of it. 

 

_iii._

_if a tree falls in the forest, do the other trees laugh?_

It seemed only natural that they would cross paths like this. That their most important conversation would occur not during one of their hurriedly planned meetings, but by happenstance, when the two were walking in opposite directions across campus. 

Kuroo knew something was wrong when Bokuto didn’t rush to greet him. He was holding something across his face, in his eyes. He pushed the weight in his chest onto Kuroo the moment he was within earshot. He sucked in a breath, feet stopping abruptly on the rain-soaked sidewalk, the smell of beginnings and endings filling his lungs. The unmistakable scent of fall. 

“I kissed Akaashi.”

Just like that. There it was. But Kuroo didn’t feel dread in the pit of his stomach. Not quite. 

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked. He wanted his voice to be monotone, but it caught in his throat.

Bokuto’s eyes were wide and teary. Classmates milled around them, either oblivious or uncaring. “I don’t want to. Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?” His words melded with the thunder that broke across the sky. 

 

_iv._

_our instincts are sometimes stronger than our minds._

Bokuto didn’t return to his dorm until late that night. Akaashi, face illuminated in the light of their laptop, shifted upon his arrival but did not stir. The door slammed behind him.

After several minutes of ruffling papers and stomping feet, Akaashi stood from their desk to face Bokuto. He was rifling through his backpack loudly, searching for something he would never find if he continued to discard items so carelessly. 

“Bokuto-san.” No response. He tried again. “ _Bokuto._ ”

“ _What?_ ” He snapped, but his shoulders visibly drooped the moment the harsh word left his mouth. He couldn’t stay angry, not even at himself.

“It was just a kiss.”

The few feet of faded carpeting that separated them felt like an unnavigable ocean. 

“It wasn’t! If it was, I wouldn’t have told Kuroo. I mean, I would, but it wouldn’t-” he huffed. “It wouldn’t have been like _this_.” Bokuto slumped down on his bed, which he had left unmade since that morning. “I really, really, _really_ like you, Akaashi. I have ever since I met you. But I’ve liked Kuroo longer. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose either of you.” 

Akaashi almost smiled as they crossed the distance of the room to perch next to him. “Stop being so dramatic, Bokuto-san. You’re not going to lose anyone.”

Bokuto hesitated before resting his head on Akaashi’s shoulder. 

“I kind of hate you right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re making me want to kiss you again.” 

 

_v._

_we should strive to be like the moon._

Tsukishima regarded the news with no more than a raised eyebrow. “Yes? And?”

Kuroo glared down at Tsukishima, who was draped across the futon in summerwear, his nose in a photography textbook. 

“And!” he groaned, lifting Tsukishima’s too-long legs to give himself room to sit down, “People in relationships don’t just go around kissing other guys!”

“First of all, Akaashi’s not a guy, lest I remind you.”

“Shit-”

“Secondly, that’s pretty much exactly what they do. Read a book, will you? Besides,” he prompted, nudging Kuroo with his foot, “Wouldn’t you kiss Akaashi, if you were given the chance?”

A lightbulb seemed to go on in Kuroo’s head. He turned to Tsukishima with wide eyes. “Hey, I know! I’ll just kiss you! Then we’ll be even, and everything can go back to normal.”

“No way.” _I’m not letting our first kiss be out of revenge._ “That won’t solve anything. Why don’t you just _talk_ to him?”

“It- we don’t work like that. We talk about everything. Except our relationship.”

“...How does _that_ work?”

“I don’t know! We just decided that we’re best friends before everything else, so if we talk about it, it just seems too...mushy. I mean, we say ‘I love you’ and stuff. We’re not living in denial or anything like that.” 

“It sounds like you guys have more problems with your relationship than your willingness to kiss other people.”

“Not everything is a shoujo manga!” Kuroo released an irritated breath. “Bokuto knows how much I care about him. Which is why I can’t understand why he would do this. How am I supposed to face him at practice tomorrow?”

“I don’t think he did it with the intention of hurting you. I don’t think it was about you at all, really.”

“Gee, thanks, that makes me feel a _lot_ better.” 

Tsukishima sat up, his textbook long abandoned. “I mean, you just told me a few days ago how you...you know. Had feelings for me, once upon a time. It’s not so far-fetched that he might have felt the same way about Akaashi.”

“I know that-”

“And recently…” He faltered. How much was too much? He was afraid if he let the words pour out of him, he wouldn’t be able to stop. “Let’s just say I’m not exactly rigid on the idea of one-on-one relationships.”

Kuroo recalled Bokuto’s words from earlier. “ _Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?_ ”

“Tsukki, you’re a genius! I love you!” He pressed a chaste kiss to his bewildered roommate’s lips before racing out the door.

 

_vi._

_the silent dog is the first to bite._

Akaashi rang Tsukishima’s doorbell a little after midnight. They came inside barefoot. 

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” Tsukishima asked as he moved aside to let them through, the smell of barbecue wafting in from one of the restaurants down the street to remind him of his first year at summer training camp.

They shrugged. “I prefer not to restrict myself that way.”

“As long as you wear shoes to practice.”

A silence encroached upon them for a moment. 

“...Is Kuroo-san still gone?”

“Yeah. He just left to meet Bokuto somewhere.”

He invited Akaashi to sit out on their small first-floor patio while the warm weather lingered. The last cicadas of the season buzzed incessantly as Akaashi began, “They’re idiots, you know.”

Tsukishima snorted. “What else is new?”

“I’m just saying. _We_ don’t have to be.”

He became minutely aware of the small distance between them, the only separation a sun-bleached volleyball magazine that had been left to wilt on the rickety porch swing. Akaashi, so unlike themself, pushed this carelessly aside to accommodate their move forward, closing the space so that Tsukishima felt goosebumps where Akaashi’s leg brushed against his own. 

“I’m not good at this,” they whispered. “I could use a little help, if you want things to go smoothly.”

“I can see how you seduced Bokuto,” Tsukishima whispered back, lips barely brushing together.

Akaashi smiled before leaning in. “How do you know _he_ didn’t seduce _me_?” 

They tasted sweet, a little hesitant, and better than Tsukishima could have imagined. The two laughed when they came up for air, lacing fingers. They stayed like that until Bokuto came in towing Kuroo an hour later and hooted at the sight of them.

 

_vii._

_patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet._

Kuroo sat with his back against the wall, readjusting himself when Bokuto nuzzled his head into his lap. The mattress, while the largest in stock at their local IKEA, was not meant to host four people. They would have to buy a second one soon. 

Akaashi came in with more blankets. The new apartment they resided in was large, but the building was old and the rooms airy, providing for a cold winter. Tsukishima had long ago fallen asleep on Kuroo’s shoulder. Akaashi carefully plucked his glasses off and placed them on the nearby dresser. They sat on the opposite side of Tsukishima, burrowing themself against Kuroo and under the pile of bedclothes. Though rent was a struggle, schoolwork heavier than ever, and their college volleyball team had lost early into the fall prefecture, Akaashi had never felt more content. 

They had long ago given up putting their relationship into conventional terms. If asked, they would say they were ‘happy’. Four bodies radiating heat on a Sunday afternoon, snow coming down in sheets outside. They knew that tomorrow was uncertain, and that their situation had already been proven imperfect; last week, Tsukishima had snapped at Bokuto about laundry and nearly resulted in a fatal four-way arguement. But in a matter of hours, the same two who began the dispute could be found sharing a box of Botan rice candy while curled up on the couch watching soap opera reruns.

The future was a hazy cloud of misgivings, and they would make mistakes down the road. Akaashi still piled dishes on the kitchen counter out of forgetfulness, and had to be given a reminder by Tsukishima that they didn’t wash themselves. They still glanced at Bokuto for permission before giving Kuroo a prolonged goodbye kiss on his way to morning classes. 

But in many ways, Akaashi’s view of the world had changed since all this began. They brought home twice as many groceries, and hid the strawberry ice cream behind the frozen vegetables in the freezer to keep safe for Tsukishima. They searched for booths instead of corner tables when they were looking for an open spot at the cafe. They were more open about their feelings, because things could get confusing with so many hearts and minds trapped behind a single door.

They no longer saw love in pairs of two.

**Author's Note:**

> titled "compass" because four opposing directions still manage to unify for a righteous cause.
> 
> stay updated on my work through my [tumblr](http://www.ketraia.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/ketraia).


End file.
